In a deal from a Swiss teams event at last year’s Atlanta Summer Nationals, you play three no-trump on the lead of the diamond four to the five, jack and queen. You unblock the top spades, then a heart to the king loses to the ace. Back comes an unfriendly club 10; what do you play now?

East is likely to have Q-10-(8)x or something similar. He may be setting the suit up for himself or trying to set it up for his partner. It seems reasonable to cover with the jack, which loses to the king. Are you still paying attention? Now West tables the club six: What should you play from dummy?

The answer is that it doesn’t matter what you do now. The way the cards lie, you are down no matter what you do … unless you unblocked the club seven from dummy on the first round of clubs! If you didn’t, and you win the second club, the defenders will eventually win the heart queen, cash a second club and exit in diamonds to score the setting trick there. If you duck the second club, they play back a low club and achieve the same result.

However, if you unblock the club seven at once, then cover the return of the club six with the nine while ducking in the closed hand, you have a finesse position against East’s 8-4 of clubs for the ninth trick!

The defenders were Sam Dinkin (West) and Michael Shuster (East). At the other table, East shifted to a low club at trick four, and declarer Karen McCallum played low from hand to wrap up nine tricks.

Jan Jansma was declarer on this deal from the second semifinal session of the Von Zedtwitz Life Master Pairs in Atlanta last summer. Would you have been good enough to defeat his game?

You, West, lead the heart jack against four spades: That goes to the queen, king and ace. Declarer plays a low diamond at trick two. As West, you would play low, I assume? If you do, partner wins the diamond king to play a trump.

When declarer plays low, you win your king … and shift to a club, I hope. This is necessary if you look at the full deal. As you can see, if you try to cash a heart, declarer has time to dispose of his club loser on the diamonds.

Jansma’s play of the heart queen at trick one might have encouraged the defenders to try to cash a heart, but Marshall Lewis, playing with Jan van Cleeff, wasn’t born yesterday. He duly shifted to a club and defeated the game. After all, the heart losers were unlikely to vanish from dummy, whereas club losers might be discarded on declarer’s diamonds.

Incidentally, Jansma might have gone up with the spade ace to play a second diamond, but since van Cleeff (who happens to be a former partner of Jansma’s) was perfectly capable of leading a spade away from the king, declarer couldn’t risk rejecting the finesse. The 5-2 diamond break would have been fatal anyway, since East would have been able to ruff in before all of dummy’s clubs could be discarded.

This deal from the first final session of the Wernher Open Pairs in Atlanta last summer gave declarers with a good nose the chance to come very close to bringing home four spades, even if not doubled.

The journalist reporting this deal recounted that at his table the heart eight lead ran to the ten jack and queen. He took a club finesse, and East won the queen to play back the heart two. This looked like suit preference to South, who put in the nine; when it held the trick, he fell from grace by playing the spade queen. The contract could now no longer be made.

A better line would have been to play a club to the ace at trick four and ruff a club. Then declarer could cash the two top diamonds and lead the fourth club. When East discards, South can pitch his last diamond.

After eight tricks, declarer has seven winners in the bag and West is down to his five trumps. A spade to the queen might see West slip up by winning this trick. If he does, then whether he plays a high or low trump, he scores only one more trump trick. He must return a low trump, then he is endplayed again at the next trick.

Curiously, though, if West ducks his trump ace, he can then ruff the heart ace with the spade 10 and exit with a low trump to ensure his extra trump winner for down one. For the record, going one down in four spades was only a skosh below average.

On this deal from last summer’s second qualifying session of the Von Zedtwitz Life Master Pairs, after passing initially, most Souths found themselves in a spade part-score.

Aggressive pairs found themselves in four spades when they decided that, as a passed hand, their offensive values were about as good as they could possibly be. They then had to make their game to justify their aggression.

Much depended on how friendly the defenders were going to be on opening lead, but declarer was still in a good place even if the defenders didn’t give him a helping hand. The point was that if West unimaginatively led the heart ace and another heart, declarer had 10 tricks without breaking a sweat. South could draw trumps and pitch a diamond loser on the heart winner.

However, at one table, West was able to see that the heart ruff could probably wait, so he led a low spade. South won the lead and played back the suit, letting East pitch an encouraging club as West won his ace. So West shifted to a club.

To make 10 tricks now, declarer should win the club ace, cross to hand in the trump suit and lead a low heart to the jack, then duck a heart to fell West’s now-bare ace. That gives declarer a discard of a diamond from dummy and an easy route to plus 620. Since West is marked with at most a doubleton, this play is strongly indicated. If East has the ace, you cannot generate a discard for yourself from the hearts.

Last summer, the U.S. National tournament was held in Atlanta. The major event at the championships was the Spingold Trophy. This is a knockout tournament featuring the best teams from around the world. The top 16 are typically as strong as a major world championship, with teams from every corner of the world assembled.

In the second round of that event, Bruce Rogoff was faced with a touch-and-go grand slam on this deal. He and Alex Ornstein were playing against John Hurd and Joel Wooldridge.

The slightly sporting jump to five no-trump by Ornstein was the grand slam force, asking Rogoff to bid seven with two of the top three trump honors. Rogoff may have had a minimum opening bid, but he wasn’t being asked if he had extras.

When Hurd led the deceptive club jack, Rogoff gave serious thought to letting it run to his king. Eventually, he decided against risking the embarrassment of going down in a laydown grand slam at trick one. So he ruffed the club, played the spade ace and spade king, ruffed a spade high, then crossed to a top trump and ruffed the fourth spade high. That let him draw the trumps, reaching a four-card ending where Wooldridge had three hearts and the club ace.

The play of the last spade squeezed Wooldridge in hearts and clubs. He discarded his club ace to keep hearts protected, and declarer had his 13th trick in the form of the club king.

When today’s deal was played in a regional pairs event, an expert player stopped in six spades and was highly disappointed when dummy came down.

Playing rather casually, perhaps vexed by his own failure to bid the hand to the right level, he took 12 tricks after the lead of a top diamond. When his partner called him out after the game, he made the reflex response that the double-dummy analyzer of the set had indicated that only 12 tricks were available. That statement was accurate in theory but wrong in practice, since after a top diamond lead he could have done better.

Let’s say you reach seven spades on the hypothetical auction shown, on the lead of the diamond king. Win the diamond ace and ruff a diamond, cash the spade ace, then lead a heart to dummy to ruff a diamond. Now play a club to dummy to ruff a diamond, and lead your last trump to the 10 to draw all the trumps.

You have taken three hearts, two clubs, four diamonds — via three ruffs — and four spade tricks; that adds up to 13. This maneuver of using the long trumps to take ruffs and drawing trumps with the short hand is called a dummy reversal.

Having said that, the reason 12 tricks are the theoretical limit is that a heart lead defeats the grand slam. The 6-1 break in the suit deprives declarer of one of his entries to table to complete the dummy reversal.

After his forcing response of one no-trump, North shows a three-card limit raise in spades, which you as South can comfortably raise to game.

You take West’s lead of the club queen with the ace and lead a low trump to the queen, which holds. When you cash the trump ace, West discards a club. What now?

You have three certain losers — two trumps and one diamond — as well as two more potential ones in hearts and clubs. The only hope is to run four heart tricks, discarding a club from table while East follows suit. (If East has three or fewer hearts, he can ruff in and cash the trump king, leaving you with a club loser.) Therefore, East needs to have at least four hearts, and under that assumption, you must play him to hold the heart queen. Basically, you need a layout like the one shown.

At trick four, play a heart to the ace and lead the heart 10. If East plays low, so do you. Next, you repeat the heart finesse and cash a heart winner to dispose of dummy’s losing club. A club ruff will be your eighth trick, and your ninth will be the diamond ace, leaving you with three low trumps in hand, which will suffice for your 10th trick.

If East covered the 10 of hearts with the queen, you would win the king, cross to dummy’s heart nine and lead a diamond to the ace. Next, you would throw dummy’s club on the heart jack and play as before.

At the 1997 Bermuda Bowl, Paul Thurston of Canada had the opportunity for a simple but elegant play. See if you can match him.

After East’s weak jump overcall of three clubs, Thurston stretched to force to game with a call of three diamonds, and soon found himself in to the diamond game when his partner made a forcing raise to four diamonds.

Yes, three no-trump might have come home on an endplay against West, but five diamonds also had play — even if the contract appeared to need the spade break.

After winning the opening lead in dummy, South drew one round of trumps, then followed with the two top spades, and ruffed a spade in hand. Things might have seemed bleak when that suit broke 4-2, but declarer pressed on with a second round of trumps to the ace, pleased to see them breaking, and led another spade.

When East discarded a second club, Thurston now made the key play of discarding a club from his hand on the spade loser, putting West on lead with only hearts to lead. He did his best by leading a low heart to the 10 and king, but now declarer could enter the North hand with a trump and pitch his last club on dummy’s fifth spade. Declarer could now ruff his heart loser in dummy for his 11th trick.

Had declarer ruffed the fourth round of spades in hand instead of discarding on that trick, he would have made only 10 tricks. The endplay against West was necessary to bring home his game.

When you lead a top club against four spades, partner’s two is a grave disappointment. In order to set four spades, it appears to be necessary to win a trick in diamonds. It looks correct, therefore, to shift to a diamond.

However, even if declarer’s distribution is 5=3=3=2, four spades cannot be set; declarer can arrange to pitch a diamond on dummy’s clubs. But if South’s distribution is 5=2=4=2, it might be possible to defeat the contract; can you see how? One possibility is to lead a diamond, playing partner for the jack. Then the defense can win a diamond before declarer discards two diamonds on dummy’s clubs. However, the diamond shift is disastrous if declarer holds the K-J-x-x of diamonds.

There is a better way to set four spades without risking a diamond lead away from the queen. You should continue with the club ace and a third club, which dummy will win with the jack, declarer pitching a diamond.

Declarer leads a spade to his king and your ace. You then lead a fourth round of clubs, which partner ruffs low and declarer over-ruffs. South has lost his second discard and is later forced to take a diamond finesse. When that loses, four spades is down one.

As you can see, if West fails to play the ace, king and another club, and later a fourth club for East to ruff, then declarer will eventually be able to pitch two diamonds on dummy’s clubs.